Here are 100 books that Monkeys fans have personally recommended if you like
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My expertise and passion for these topics stem from my lived experiences. I never understood why I would be the only girl to suffer so much, but now, having written my memoir, I know it all had a purpose. Some people with similar backgrounds write to me, and I try to offer them compassion, encouragement, hope, and understanding. I advise them to write their own memoirs to shed light on different life issues and inspire meaningful conversations. I have been a platinum member of Audible since 2016 and have more than 1000 memoirs in my library—I hope this helped me to choose the best five memoirs for this list!
I lived Augusten Burroughs’ life while walking in the U.S. National Arboretum through the medium of his audiobook. Augusten Burroughs’ parents had the same issues as my parents, and his life was as eclectic as mine. This allowed me to heal my long-time wounds in a way.
The more I read about the emotional struggles of others, the easier it is for me to fully remember the darkest moments of my childhood. This particular memoir also made it difficult for me to put it down because of its very bizarre plot and dark humor. Additionally, I was fascinated to read about the time before I was born. Isn’t it odd that the world once existed without us?
This is the true story of a boy who wanted to grow up with the Brady Bunch, but ended up living with the Addams Family. Augusten Burroughs's mother gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa Claus and a certifiable lunatic into the bargain. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients and a sinister man living in the garden shed completed the tableau. The perfect squalor of their dilapidated Victorian house, there were no…
Having known families affected by substance abuse, I’ve long been fascinated by the resiliency of addicts’ relatives and close friends. Equally compelling to me, as a one-time wannabe psychologist, was how living with substance abusers shaped people’s characters and lives. But while the search for a recovering addict drives Beyond Billicombe’s plot, the book is also an ode of sorts to North Devon, the area of England where I spent three of the happiest years of my life. Though I now live outside New York City, I haven’t given up hope on being able to move back there someday.
Shuggie Bain invades the senses: You smell the sour breath of Shuggie’s mum as she snores, open-mouthed, in a drunken stupor; you feel the stiffness of the rug where endless spilled drinks were left to dry. Just as important, you feel the push-and-pull of love and despair, hope and anger, as Shuggie grows up, the youngest child of an alcoholic who is ultimately abandoned by the rest of their family. The final chapters, as Shuggie moves into adolescence and struggles to break from the burden of becoming caretaker to the woman who should have been taking care of him, are exceptional.
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
A stunning debut novel by a masterful writer telling the heartwrenching story of a young boy and his alcoholic mother, whose love is only matched by her pride.
Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.
I'm a stage and television actress who, after getting married and having two children, turned to writing in my forties as my “second act”. I started writing about being a mom in Hollywood, and being raised by a mom who was—well, nuts. For years I dined out on crazy stories of my childhood: breakfasting on cold, half-eaten hors d'oeuvres strewn across our Park Avenue room from my crazy mom's all-night cocktail parties, falling asleep on banquets at nightclubs, skipping school to sneak into a swanky hotel in London and meet the Osmonds. The final result was my memoir, Chanel Bonfire. I believe it has the power to inspire and give hope, as well as entertain.
I’m a big believer in self-help books. This was recommended to me by a therapist who basically saved my life, navigating me through a very difficult time in my life in my twenties. The author, Victoria Secunda, breaks down all the different dysfunctional types of mothers, with chapters titled “The Avenger”, “The Doormat”, “The Critic”, in an easy-to-understand way. Reading this book helped me “diagnose” my mother, who never took responsibility for her mental illness, always blaming her behavior on her kids or others. This book helped me to understand her more fully, perhaps even feel compassion for her. I often recommend it to anyone who, like me, has or had a troubled relationship with their mother.
“A book of great value for every daughter and every mother; useful for sons, too.”—Benjamin Spock, M.D.
From the Introduction: The goal of this book is to help readers achieve that separation so that they can either find a way to be friends with their mothers, or at least recognize and accept that their mothers did the best they could—even if it wasn't “good enough”—and to stop blaming them. Among the issues to be covered:
• To understand how a daughter's attachment to her mother—more so than her relationship with her father—colors all her other relationships, and to analyze why…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I'm a stage and television actress who, after getting married and having two children, turned to writing in my forties as my “second act”. I started writing about being a mom in Hollywood, and being raised by a mom who was—well, nuts. For years I dined out on crazy stories of my childhood: breakfasting on cold, half-eaten hors d'oeuvres strewn across our Park Avenue room from my crazy mom's all-night cocktail parties, falling asleep on banquets at nightclubs, skipping school to sneak into a swanky hotel in London and meet the Osmonds. The final result was my memoir, Chanel Bonfire. I believe it has the power to inspire and give hope, as well as entertain.
Eloise is a children’s picture book about a six-year-old girl who lives with her nanny, named Nanny, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. She has no real parents; her father isn’t around and her mother prefers to jet set around the world, shopping and eating lunch. Eloise is hilariously unkempt, in her rumpled party dress, uncombed hair, and crooked hair bow, she prowls the hotel, looking for snacks and adventure. Eloise has always been close to my heart for her wild imagination and her plucky acceptance of being a fabulously neglected child.
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Eloise has been delighting readers for more than sixty years—though she’s still not a day over six. Celebrate with the original classic storybook that now comes with a CD narrated by the brilliant Bernadette Peters!
Eloise is a very special little girl who lives at The Plaza Hotel in New York City. She may not be pretty yet, but she’s definitely already a real person. She loves learning about people who aren’t boring. Take Eloise home with you and she’ll introduce you to life at The Plaza. You’ll be glad you did! Eloise’s fans—young and old—will love, love, love this…
The tagline on the cover of my book reads: Family life is not always easy. And never a truer word was spoken. I was inspired to write my book while raising my own daughter, Nina, who was diagnosed with autism at age ten. My book is fiction, but my knowledge of autism is from my lived experience. As Nina got older, she began to join me in doing talks about my book–where she was the autism expert, and I was the expert in writing. Together we have done many talks on TV, radio, newspapers, schools and libraries. I hope you enjoy these autistic characters–real and fictional–as much as I do.
I could hardly put down this memoir written by the sibling of an autistic boy–set in a time when the term ‘autistic’ did not exist. Mary-Ann Tirone Smith was brought up in New England in the fifties when there was no understanding of autism at all. There was no welfare dept, social services, or health service to turn to for help because no one understood.
Instead, the family ‘absorbs’ Tyler, the autistic brother, and protects and cares for him themselves. Getting this ‘sibling’s view’ is really fascinating. I loved all the quirky characters and the inevitable humor when the outside world does not understand Tyler.
Running alongside the story of Tyler is a true crime story about a school friend of Mary-Ann’s who was murdered by a pedophile. I found the book to be gripping, heartbreaking, funny, and moving.
Mary-Ann Tirone Smith grew up in New England during the 1950s, the daughter of an extended French-Italian family. Smith's neighbourhood was typical small-town America - everyone's door was left unlocked at night, and the school, church, library, pub and grocery shop were all within walking distance. In many ways, it was a typical rough-and-tumble childhood, but someone would shatter it and change Smith's life and that of the town, forever. Smith's family is peopled with wonderful characters - her mother who's always on the verge of a nervous breakdown; her adoring father who sees to waking Mary-Ann each morning to…
I left my hometown of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, at age 18 to attend university in Manhattan, where I started my career in journalism and the media. Since then, I’ve lived in Berlin, Germany; Hong Kong; and now Copenhagen, Denmark, generally moving to advance my career and explore new worlds. Whenever you move to a new place and establish yourself in a new culture, there’s always a learning curve. Helping other women (and men!) adapt to their new environment is why I started the “How to Live in Denmark” podcast, which has now been running for more than 10 years.
This trilogy about a girl who leaves a small New England town to work at a glossy magazine in Manhattan in the 1950s helped me understand the roots of the 1960s feminist culture. Men, including the man she ultimately marries, are simply seen as the authority based on their gender.
I’ll never forget the scene where the protagonist is trying desperately to have a baby, goes to a replacement doctor during summer vacation, and finds out that her primary doctor has been giving her birth control pills disguised as other prescription medicine. “I didn’t think you were ready to be a mother,” the primary doctor tells her later.
The New York Times said that Mary Cantwell, in telling the story of her life, "Makes you discover yourself." Now, gathered in a single volume, are her three beautifully etched, unflinchingly honest memoirs. Cantwell's first book, American Girl, evoked the delights of her youth in a small New England town; her second, Manhattan, When I Was Young, told of her blossoming career in New York, her marriage and her children, and that marriage's decline. Speaking with Strangers finds Cantwell alone, a single mother struggling in the big city, bereft of her husband but bolstered by friends, thriving in her career…
Truth told, folks still ask if Saul Crabtree sold his soul for the perfect voice. If he sold it to angels or devils. A Bristol newspaper once asked: “Are his love songs closer to heaven than dying?” Others wonder how he wrote a song so sad, everyone who heard it…
My idea for a book about Thanksgiving was born in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I was in downtown Manhattan that awful morning on my way to my office at the Wall Street Journal, directly across from the World Trade Center. I stood on the street and watched the towers fall. Two months later, as Thanksgiving approached, I found myself reading William Bradford’s first-person account of the First Thanksgiving. I wanted to learn more about this little kernel of history and how it grew into a cherished national holiday. I wrote several articles for the Journal about the holiday. Writing a book was the logical next step.
I love, love, love this endearing novella by the author of Little Women. It’s Thanksgiving morning on the Barrett Farm in New Hampshire, and Mrs. Barrett is called away to nurse her sick mother in town. Father hitches up the sleigh and off they go to Grandma’s house, leaving eight hungry children behind. The oldest girl declares that she knows how to roast a turkey, and before you know it, she’s talked her skeptical brothers and sisters into helping her make the feast. Catastrophe ensues, with a lot of fun for the reader along the way.
"You will see what I can do. Ma said I was to use my judgment about things, and I'm going to. All you children have got to do is to keep out of the way, and let Prue and me work. Eph, I wish you'd put a fire in the best room, so the little ones can play in there. We shall want the settin-room for the table, and I won't have them pickin' round when we get things fixed," commanded Tilly, bound to make her short reign a brilliant one.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve collected family stories. My late grandmother told me that I had “nose trouble.” I can’t help it. I’m fascinated by the psychic ghosts that both haunt us and light us up. In researching my most recent novel about the generational ripples of family addiction, I read more than 50 books and talked with dozens of addicts in various stages of recovery. All my books, though, feature humans who seek to mend ruptures of the soul and in turn liberate themselves from the troubles that define them. These are my favorite stories to read and to tell.
I love a well-told, emotionally complex, family drama set in the burbs (aʹ la John Cheever, Amy Bloom, A.M. Homes, you get the drift).
Setting and gorgeous writing aside, Lily King crawls inside the heart and head of protagonist Daley Amory, a twenty-something who is trying to escape the tyranny of her father’s alcoholism and reinvent a new life for herself.
I rooted hard for her to make this break, to ride off into the sunset, or to enroll at Berkely to study anthropology, and make a life with a great guy.
I won’t give away the ending, but suffice it to say that King writes brilliantly about addiction, family, and the fierce and often futile siren’s call to repair what is broken.
Prize-winning author Lily King’s masterful new novel spans three decades of a volatile relationship between a charismatic, alcoholic father and the daughter who loves him.
Gardiner Amory is a New England WASP who's beginning to feel the cracks in his empire. Nixon is being impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life negotiating her parents’ conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother and the conservative, decadent, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when they divorce, and Gardiner’s basest impulses are…
I've been a paranormal investigator (a paranormal reporter, actually) for over a decade. One of the very best parts of my job is that I get to gorge myself on books of true accounts of the paranormal. It's exciting to see what else is out there, and what other people have experienced – both historically, and personally. I'm so grateful for the chance to add to this body of work; there are many renowned investigators and writers out there, and I'm thrilled to be counted among them. And someday, someone will read about my experiences and be terrified and intrigued and inspired by them.
Pitkin writes in a very accessible style. What drew me into this book, in particular, is that he starts the book off with a personal experience. He writes of the incident that turned him from a skeptic into a believer in the paranormal. Intriguing stuff, to be sure ... but this revelation also changed his attitude towards teaching, making him more tolerant of other cultures, and more open to sharing different worldviews with his students. Whereas prior to this experience, he had been dismissive of what he saw as "primitive" beliefs (regarding African belief in witchcraft and the afterlife), he was now more willing to explore alternative belief systems with his students.
Neuroscience PhD student Frankie Conner has finally gotten her life together—she’s determined to discover the cause of her depression and find a cure for herself and everyone like her. But the first day of her program, she meets a group of talking animals who have an urgent message they refuse…
Jenny Hale Pulsipher is a professor of history at Brigham Young University and the author of numerous articles and two award-winning books, Subjects unto theSame King: Indians, English, and the Contest of Authority in Early New England and Swindler Sachem: The American Indian Who Sold His Birthright, Dropped Out of Harvard, and Conned the King of England.
Ulrich, winner of the Pulitzer Prize forA Midwife's Tale, first wrote this ground-breaking study of women in early New England. With her characteristically elegant prose and inspired organization, she details the varied roles women played in family, community, and religious life. An illuminating work, and a page-turner.
This enthralling work of scholarship strips away abstractions to reveal the hidden--and not always stoic--face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens--and the considerable power--of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising--and, all too often, mourning--her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, Good Wives is history at its best.